All posts by Frank Catalano

For those wondering: No, I haven’t completely abandoned working in education technology. But I have decided to no longer only do the kind of work I once was known for: edtech marketing consulting.

As a result, I said a fond (truly) farewell to my last client that was solely for marketing at the end of October, by mutual agreement. I won’t take any new clients for which all I’m being asked to do is advise on tactical marketing, in isolation. Whether a consulting, interim or potentially full-time role, what I do needs to be broader.

Hey. I've decided to end my #edtech marketing consulting work at the end of 2018. Time for fresh intensity and challenge, not repeats of past experiences.

So 2019? It'll be a different combination, or situation. Or something entirely new.

Because marketing itself doesn’t operate in isolation. And, honestly, being a consultant telling people what they usually don’t want to hear — that they have to change what they’re doing to improve their outcomes, rather than just do more of it, or tweak it — is like rechewing decades-old bubble gum. I’ve lost my taste for that.

I’ve said as much about marketing’s need to connect more broadly, beyond sales, to a number of my clients. I said it to colleagues in my most recent executive position as vice president of marketing strategy for West’s SchoolMessenger business, a role that ended after a reorg a year ago this November.

I’ve said it so often, that I fully expect my epitaph to be, “He was candid.”

I've not made a big deal of this. But for the remainder of 2018, I'm helping out as an editor and writer on the @GeekWire newsdesk. I can be reached for #edtech stories with a Pacific NW hook at the bottom of this page, underneath the scary photo of … me https://t.co/j9aO3zam9Z

So, in early September, I began a brief period of fill-in work at the newsdesk of GeekWire, my long-time column and podcast home. I’m providing overall coverage and editing support for several weeks.

It’s allowed me to research topics I don’t normally get to dig into, providing a greater perspective on both edtech and the rest of the technology sector. I’m able to draw on decades of journalism and tech industry experience. And I get to work with very smart reporters of different ages from a variety of backgrounds.

When 2019 rolls out, I may remain a consultant. I may find a more substantial full-time role. It may be in edtech, or a related industry. Or it may be something completely different.

Okay, I could pretend my birthday didn’t exist. Or use a neat math dodge and switch from counting years in base 10, our usual decimal system, to base 12. That literally would make 60 the new 50.

But there’s no avoiding chronology. I’m 60. And to mark the occasion, I shared some lessons I’ve learned about business and personal life on Twitter on September 9.

I hadn’t planned on sharing the ten tweets beyond Twitter, but the response was pretty surprising, so I also pointed to them on Facebook and LinkedIn. As someone noted, the lessons were more about work/life balance than strict business or personal advice.

I share them here, in the hopes they might be useful. Or mildly amusing.

Today I’m 60. And at the risk of alienating recruiters who will now think I’m too old to be employable, here are some small lessons I’ve learned since joining the #workforce at 15 (yes, 15, as someone tossed out of the house and living on his own). 1/10

You will be discriminated against as you age. It’ll be couched as “being able to handle a startup pace” or “needing the freshest ideas” or “requiring flexibility.” But age doesn’t prevent any of this. If these are given as a reason and you can still do it, it’s #ageism. 3/10

Treat every job as if you were an outside consultant. What critically needs to get done, damn the internal politics? Then find a way to do it in a space where no one cares or a moment when no one is looking, and run fast to the finish line. 4/10

Treasure the few hours in an unfamiliar city on a business trip. See a museum. See a public market. You may not be back. And you will remember it far more than a featureless hotel conference room, office, or airport. I do. 5/10

Take walks. Work out. Practice yoga. One hour a day focused on something else will actually increase your productivity, not limit it. I exercise daily. You are your most valuable work resource. Take care of it. 6/10

Want to volunteer? Nonprofit #arts boards rarely care about your skills, except for the smallest or smartest (I’ve been on a couple). The prestigious are most interested in your wallet. It’s not what you can do for them. It’s what you can give to them. Don’t delude yourself. 7/10

Never forget that everything can change in an instant. It’s not just exec layoffs due to a ‘change in control’ (been there). It’s also those around you. Cancer. Suicide. Be aware that if you have success & living friends, you are fortunate. Be appreciative. 8/10

Never be afraid to admit what you don’t know. If someone else on your team does know, whether a peer or a direct report, their knowledge filling the gaps in yours helps build mutual support and actual respect. 9/10

Finally, suffer fools as politely as possible. I still struggle with this. But no one ever lost a deal, job or argument with a fool by being polite. Just remember to get the hell out of there afterward as quickly as possible. 10/10

And if you say, “Hey, there are only 9 explicit tips, not 10 as promised in the headline!” there is one implicit in the first tweet. That admitting you are 60 publicly may feel good, but it’ll likely turn off recruiters. I’m okay with that.

It’s been a busy summer full of science fiction, digital media, and edtech trends. So busy, that I didn’t take a vacation. But I did manage a quick weekend trip to Disneyland for some tech ‘research.’ Really.

What did I learn over the last three months, and was fascinated enough to write about?

Seattle remains a quiet hotbed of science-fiction activity.

From the Clarion West Writers Workshop, which has graduated some of the best-known speculative fiction talents over more than three decades, to the new science-fiction and predictive analysis membership website Scout, Seattle remains at the top of its science-fiction game.

Seattle also mourns. Harlan Ellison, one great of the field who never lived here, but was inducted in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame at MoPOP, died over the summer.

Cultural institutions are broadly trying tech that highlights the arts.

Our consumption of media keeps changing as more of it goes digital.

But there’s a dark side, too. Ebook ‘book stuffing.’ And really stupid self-inflicted wounds that can give a stranger control of your social media account.

Tech giants are coming for education technology.

Yes, there have been companies that have specialized in edtech for decades, and many startups and their investors discovered the market this decade. But Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are now battling, with varying amounts of success, for the hearts and minds of classroom teachers. Microsoft, for example, is taking Minecraft: Education Edition to the iPad, and purchased the startup Flipgrid to give away its classroom video discussion product for free.

The discussion continues, though, on tech’s place in schools. Elementary students literally debated ‘tablets vs. textbooks’ in Seattle. Whatever digital media wins in classrooms remains a toss-up, due to obstacles to implementation.

You can ride 17 attractions at Disneyland in one day with time to spare.

Perhaps the happiest discovery of the summer came at the Happiest Place on Earth, where I found apps made it possible to fully experience Disneyland and Disney California Adventure with minimal lines and stress for maximum rides and fun. Plus, have time to spare to ponder how the parks have quietly updated classic attractions with digital ‘new magic’ over the years.

Early this year, I decided to invert the amounts of time I spend writing and consulting. Writing, I determined, would now be primary. Consulting, if I had time and a strong interest in the engagement, would be secondary.

I even wrote a heavily viewed blog post after my shift was already well underway. It outlined what I’d been doing and the rationale, but cautioned it was “experimental swap of emphasis,” and I’d likely be “trading one set of career annoyances for another.”

That caution was warranted.

Since the beginning of the year, I have learned three annoying things about my career, my writing, and myself that others may learn from as well.

Too many people read “spending more time (fill in the blank)” as mid-career code for “retiring.”

Let me make this really, really clear: I am not retiring. I do not want to retire. I probably practically cannot retire as it would likely lead to my early demise (either from boredom, or at the hands of my spouse after she hears me whine about boredom one too many times).

Yet there’s still this cultural assumption that “retirement” naturally goes along with writing, and sometimes consulting, mid-career.

Both, if done right, are hard work. Both can be more than full-time jobs. And both are increasingly common professional options as our society shifts from a permanent-employment economy to a freelance-and-gig economy.

My spouse points out that perhaps others mean it kindly. Perhaps they think of “retirement” as not having to go into an office every day to a job I (or more likely, they) hate. Perhaps I look like I need it.

But in today’s economy and job market, don’t assume any individual choice to write more, or even consult more, is a move to retire. Unless, of course, the only receptive audience for that writing or advice is the non-paying household cat.

The mechanics of journalism are widely misunderstood.

My writing emphasis to date has been a return to journalism, contributing a regular Media/Tech column to GeekWire, as well as a monthly arts and pop culture podcast and occasional stories about education technology and other topics.

I was a full-time staff journalist once, but that ended three decades ago. Yet I’ll venture the general public’s understanding then of what journalists do was much better than it is now.

After all, then there were (as I recall) a number of well-known movies, books and television shows about journalists. Citizen memories of reporters’ roles in successfully exposing Watergate were still fresh. There was far more news organization staff working and, importantly, visible at the local level than there is today.

So I’ve found myself educating current-day PR people and tech executives what an “embargo” and “off the record” mean (yes, a journalist has to agree to either in advance, not after being given that unsolicited news release or provocative interview quote). I’ve had to gently advise edtech industry figures on Twitter that just because TV didn’t cover an event doesn’t mean that a media ban was directly responsible — decimated local market reportorial ranks may not have even known about an event, or had staff to cover it.

And I’ve watched as technology giants seem to conflate popularity with quality of news media coverage. (Run that thought experiment on novels and movies, and you’ll quickly see where that correlation falls apart, right Madea?)

I also suspect some of this is on journalists, including their professional organizations, for not doing ongoing proactive outreach, instead apparently assuming people innately know how reporting works. Plus it’s on schools for not teaching media literacy.

Yet this is about more than preventing the spread of fake news. It’s about understanding how news reporting happens and that good reporting is not simply parroting official statements and press releases. In a democracy, that process is critical to appreciate.

It’s a fine line that separates magical thinking from pursuing a dream.

This was the hardest and most personal lesson I had to learn. Deciding you might like to do something is absolutely not the same as doing it.

When I undertook this shift early this year, I figured I’d finally write two novels I’d once outlined, or maybe one or two more non-fiction books I’d considered. Perhaps I’d return to writing long essays and short fiction; I’d had both published before.

But as I maxed out the amount of writing I could do for GeekWire and my non-consulting time freed up, I found other ways to fill it. It slowly, sadly dawned on me that the reason I’d never written those books or more fiction wasn’t because my full-time work prevented it. It was that deep down I didn’t have the fire in my belly to do the writing.

If I’d really wanted to do it, I’d have found the time. Made the time. Years ago.

That’s when it became clear to me that magical thinking had replaced pursing a dream. I wanted the results of the dream without having the underlying, unrelenting passion required to achieve it.

Here you can substitute “become company president” or “have a successful startup” or “be a Hollywood actor” for “write two novels.”

Close friends, long-time colleagues, and your own gut are important touchstones to prevent rationalizing these types of realities. Better I figured it out after only a handful of months rather than spun my wheels endlessly waiting for it to just happen.

Sometimes, I’ve now learned, you have to try something different and see if it works. And if not, be willing to admit it, stay flexible and keep open to newer opportunities that point in the right direction.

You never realize how much you depend on the smallest thing until it fails. Like a key on your laptop.

Last month, I traveled to San Diego to attend the ASU+GSV Summit, an investor- and company exec-focused education technology conference. I’d committed to writing about it for GeekWire. That meant lots of note taking during sessions, nighttime drafting of stories, and the usual stuff that goes with the practice of “writing.”

My laptop of choice was a Lenovo Flex 4, which had been primarily a personal laptop (purchased when I had a corporate exec position, so I had a job-issued Dell ultralight as my main machine). The 14″ Lenovo, with its lightweight keyboard and touch screen, wasn’t a standalone workhorse. I used it almost exclusively with a docking station in my home office. But it seemed to also suffice as a road companion on my infrequent trips.

I’ve always been a fast typist and probably a bit more of a keyboard-pounder than most (I’m told I’m noisy by others on conference calls). That’s what happens when you learned “keyboarding” on an old-school manual typewriter that required great force for the metal type lever to make an impression on the paper through the cloth inked ribbon.

Not the actual typewriter on which I learned, but you get the idea.

Still, the Flex worked fine through the first day of conference note-taking, and an evening of responding to email. The next morning, as I began to draft stories, I noticed spaces frequently weren’t appearing between my words.

Odd, I thought. I kept trying, and then found periods (so to speak) of no spaces were punctuated by occasional unending strings of repeating spaces.

Glancing down at the keyboard, I saw the space bar had gone flush with the laptop base.

Uh oh.

I turned the laptop over and tapped on the base. Yes, that popped the space bar up. For about ten words of typing. Stuck flush anew.

I realized I had a problem. Solutions considered, tried, and discarded:

Type a hyphen (-) between each word instead of a space, then later do a global search-and-replace. That quickly got tedious as I had to consciously stop after-each-word-to-reach-up-to-press-the-hyphen-key.

Race like a stereotypical ink-stained wretch on deadline and ignore the malfunctioning space bar, inserting spaces later. Thatquicklymadereviewingandeditingtextawful. And I felt like a bizarre hybrid of James Joyce and e.e. cummings.

Use the on-screen touch keyboard to insert spaces, since I recalled the Flex was also a touch screen-enabled laptop. Same mental speed bump problem as the hyphen solution, not to mention rapid smearing of the screen I was trying to read.

Find an existing space, copy it, and then just paste it between words. God. No.

After trying workarounds and failing, a quick phone call to Lenovo technical support from the hotel made it clear that this was not something I could repair myself.

So for the remainder of the conference, I took my notes on paper (also leading to the realization that if one doesn’t do handwritten note-taking often, the printing becomes indecipherable and one’s hand cramps quickly), as well as in Evernote on my smartphone (hoping that auto-correct would fix any thumb-inspired typographical mess).

Then the Flex 4 went back to Lenovo for replacement of the keyboard under its one-year warranty . Which was good timing, as I discovered while on the phone in the hotel room to Lenovo tech support that I was calling on exactly the one-year anniversary of my purchase. (Whew.)

I’ll be finding a new home for the now-fully refurbished Flex with its virgin keyboard. I’ve purchased a more industrial-strength primary work laptop, a Lenovo X1 Carbon on which I’m writing this.

I hit the Million Mile Flyer level on Alaska Airlines five years ago, and am well on my way to my second million butt-in-seat miles. I used to commute regularly and routinely from Seattle to each of New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and more for various projects and positions. I’ve given keynotes in locations ranging from Arizona to New Zealand.

Every couple of years, I redeem flight and hotel loyalty program points and take trips to Europe, making all of my own arrangements.

So I’ve learned stuff.

A different kind of air experience after a New Zealand keynote.

After my recent ten days of vacation in Germany and Spain (thanks to redeeming Alaska Airlines and Starwood Preferred Guest miles and points), I wrote up the latest in series of “guides” to mostly paperless travel, “Can you go paperless on an overseas trip? The Geek’s Guide to International Travel, 2018 Edition,” for GeekWire. (One hint: Evernote and/or Dropbox are great for storing digital copies of critical documents, like passports, and usable copies of any barcoded rail or admission tickets.)

But for my friends and followers on Facebook, I shared ten more general tips on how to make overseas vacation travel better:

The highest and best use of frequent flier miles and hotel loyalty program points is international travel. Not only does it remove a lot of costs from the vacation equation, it provides the best value per point.

Conversely, the highest and best use of vacation time is walking the city streets and visiting the local haunts wherever you are. You meet real people and see real places, not just those that hawk “We speak English!” or want to offer you a “free” walking tour.

Prepare for language frustration, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared. You’re not going to understand the rapid-fire real-world linguistic shorthand outside of a language-learning app (though I did love prepping with Duolingo). Just smile and point and lot, and you’ll be fine.

Wear a money belt. (Yeah, it’s a pain, but so is replacing all of your credit cards and cash on the go.) And, if you carry a day pack, consider the really safe and well-designed PacSafe brand with interlocking zipper pulls and RFID shields. We loved ours.

Extra subway rides remain on this Barcelona transit pass.

Take local mass transit. You’ll see more of the city on a tram, bus, or subway than you’ll ever see on a scripted tour bus. (And get a souvenir that may prompt you go to back, such as our Barcelona T-10 pass with four rides left.)

Give yourself down days to reflect, relax, and re-visit. We decided to to forego another day trip from Madrid to either Toledo or El Escorial after a previous day trip to Cordoba so we could explore Madrid more deeply. We don’t regret it.

Don’t over-plan. Pick one must-see sight per day. Then fill in around the edges as your time and energy level allow. That way, you’ll know you’ve seen the highlights and won’t be more concerned with a checklist than what’s around you.

Eat local. Yes, we’re pescetarians (fish and veggie). But we tried local sausage and currywurst and Riesling and Apfelwein in Frankfurt, and jamon and paella and manchengo cheese and olives and red wines and churros with hot dark chocolate in Barcelona and Madrid. Food is a critical aspect of culture, not just nourishment. Can’t indulge? Sample. (That’s what tapas are for.)

Study in advance, and keep humble keepsakes along the way. Diving deeply into an experience and making it memorable isn’t just having the experience. It’s anticipation, built by catching videos and reading guidebooks about your destination in advance. It’s reinforcement, which means keeping those museum tickets with images and place maps. Don’t underestimate the value of either.

Pack a sense of humor. Things will go wrong. But making others (and yourself) relax through humor at the absurd will make the journey less stressful. (And yes, I’m looking at you, Frankfurt Airport.)

And, if it’s not clear: You can use many of these on any vacation trip to get the most real life and enjoyment out of your travel.

Five years ago, being stalked by dinosaurs near Paris on a similar ten-day vacation trip.

But it was not a smooth road to recording. It took three attempts on three dates over six months to get to the finished podcast and feature article.

First, some backstory. The podcast episode had its genesis when I was having dinner in Washington D.C. with Trevor Owens, inaugural head of digital content management for library services at the Library of Congress. He mentioned some incredibly interesting work he’d been doing at the world’s largest library, taking “born-digital” content (materials that have never existed in any other form other than digitally) and archiving it for everyone to see online.

That was in September 2017. I was on vacation. I’d just started my podcast series for GeekWire a month earlier. I thought, “Wow, this could be a cool topic.” I asked if he’d be interested in coming on the show, and he agreed.

We exchanged several emails over the next month, reviewing background on the various projects in various parts of the sprawling LoC. I finally decided to focus on the American Folklife Center and its online collection of archived sites that document what the LoC calls “emergent cultural traditions on the web,” from emojis and GIFs to Creepypasta and Slashdot.

Both Trevor and Nicki Saylor, head of the American Folklife Center Archive at the Library of Congress, agreed to record the podcast remotely from D.C. Clare McGrane, my ace producer, worked out a seamless way to use Skype to record two different guests at two different locations in addition to recording me asking my questions from the GeekWire studio in real-time.

So far, so good.

One of the primarily text web sites in the Web Cultures Web Archive, from 2002.

The first recording date approached, in November. A few days beforehand, Clare and I realized while we had all the technical pieces set, we hadn’t actually tested them working together. There was a small glitch. To play it safe, we apologetically postponed. The holidays were ahead, so the next date that worked was in January.

Specifically January 22. The one and only weekday of the federal government shutdown of early 2018. The Library of Congress was shuttered. No interview.

We rescheduled a second time for early March. The Friday before our Monday recording date, a huge storm slammed D.C. and also shut the Library of Congress. We crossed our fingers. We bit our fingernails. By Monday, everything had melted and re-opened.

The third time was the charm. The result you hear sounds relaxed and spur of the moment, as though we’d just decided to have a chat.

That, more than anything else, is the magic of audio. And a really good producer.

Three decades ago, I began my career in the tech industry. But what some don’t know is that working as a tech (or edtech) exec, whether on staff or as a consultant, has been my second career.

So after 30 years I’m returning to my first career: journalism and other writing, with consulting now as the side project.

In late 1987, I left a career in journalism (primarily in radio news, but also some TV and print) and as a budding writer of science fiction to become an early marketing manager for the Apple Programmer’s and Developer’s Association. That was when you still had to educate people about what a “personal computer” was before enticing them to buy one. For a journalist who had won Computer Press Association awards for a radio talk show (yes) about computing, working for APDA and its parent A.P.P.L.E. Co-op was a natural fit.

I went on to marketing management at Egghead Discount Software and became a marketing exec at a number of tech companies. My shift to edtech began with a consulting role as interim vice president of marketing for McGraw-Hill Home Interactive. That led to explaining tech’s potential (and limitations) in the education market. I’ve since held marketing executive staff roles at Pearson Education, Professional Examination Service, and SchoolMessenger (West Corporation), plus consulting senior roles with several more firms.

Always, it’s been with the tenets that tech marketing and branding must focus on what’s unique, believable, and true. It ties back to providing information from which a buyer can make a confident decision. If you’re missing any of these three elements, you may not be marketing in the best interests of the company or the customer. You could just be shilling for that fast buck.

Not coincidentally, those three tenets also are related to good journalism, even if the desired outcomes are very different.

Throughout my career as a tech exec and consultant, I’ve kept my hands — at careful arm’s length — in some form of journalism, usually as an analyst or commentator. I wrote the “Byte Me” column for a Seattle-area alternative news weekly for four years. For another four, I did television commentary about tech.

And for the past lucky seven years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be a founding writer for the tech news site GeekWire, contributing columns, podcasts, and news stories as often as my day job would allow. In between all of this, I co-authored a couple of Dummies books, wrote some long essays, and did a lot of public speaking.

However, there were always things I would not write about because of my concerns about perceived or real conflicts of interest. That hampered topics I was willing to take on.

So now it’s time to flip the model.

Starting, well, already earlier this year, I’m returning to journalism, analysis and commentary as my main job. That work encompasses both tech and — more so than I was able to do in the past — edtech.

GeekWire will remain my home base, allowing me to expand the writing I’ve done about edtech, continue my special monthly podcast interview/story series about pop culture, science fiction, and the arts, and begin a new weekly column about the intersection of media and technology when it comes to creating and consuming “content.” I realize this experimental swap of emphasis won’t be all wonderfulness. It’s risky. And I’ll be trading one set of career annoyances for another. Don’t let anyone tell you journalism and fiction writing aren’t businesses, especially if you expect to get paid.

Will I write for others, beyond GeekWire? Yes. There may again be long essays, short fiction, and books.

Will I still consult? As time, interest and ethical considerations allow. But I doubt much consulting will be on standard marketing. That intellectual challenge, for me, is incremental after three decades.

Besides, unlike when I began, no one today has to explain digital technology to consumers or educators to get them interested in using it. More important, and part of my role now, is helping all of us better understand how to intelligently manage tech’s effects on our everyday lives.

Seattle gets a lot of credit for being a hub for the technology industry. But what may not be as obvious to the masses — and is being surfaced by some tech leaders themselves — is that Seattle (and the broader Pacific Northwest) is a hub for science fiction and fantasy too.

And they’re increasingly linked.

I’ve delved a bit into those connections this year as I’ve stepped up my writing for the tech news site GeekWire. Not only do we now in the Northwest have Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Bill Gates, but we will always have Frank Herbert, Greg Bear, and Ursula K. LeGuin.

(Personal disclosure: I was once an active science-fiction writer and one-time officer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. So my perception might be skewed, much like yours would be if someone casually mentioned there are lots of yellow Volkswagen cars on the road, and suddenly that’s all you’re seeing, even though you never noticed them before.)

So far, 2018 has provided several very public examples of the ties between the greater Seattle area, speculative fiction, and sometimes tech titans.

Example one: The late Frank Herbert, best known for the ground-breaking Dune series of novels but also a former Seattle journalist, being honored in his home town of Tacoma with a park.

In 1986, I was asked by Frank Herbert's family to help field media calls about his literary legacy when he died (I was once an officer of @SFWA). Now, his #scifi "Dune" is getting a namesake park in Frank's home town.

Example two: Amazon has done a lot to raise the profile of science fiction and fantasy on video with its original productions. (Just think of how well Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle has been transformed into a series for Amazon Prime.)

One big reason may be that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos himself is a fan of the genre and is willing to propel adaptations. The latest? Iain M. Banks’ Culture novel series.

Example three: SFWA’s current president, Cat Rambo, lives in Seattle and is a tireless advocate for writers (especially of short fiction and, lately, of games). One of those writers Cat and SFWA have recently highlighted is Peter S. Beagle, who lived in the Seattle area during the 1980s and has a 2016 novel, Summerlong, set here. Beagle will shortly become a SFWA Grand Master.

The guest appearance probably won’t provide any insight into the science fiction Gates prefers. But earlier, he had expressed an appreciation for the work of Neal Stephenson — who happens to live in the Seattle area, too.

I don’t do tweet storms much. But recently, I got riled up about the state of K-12 edtech industry news coverage. Ten tweets resulted.

I find it troubling that the amount of regular reporting of what’s happening inside the K-12 #edtech industry appears to have fallen off. This is important not just so those in the industry know what’s going on, but those in the public (including educators) understand movitators.

Yes, there are the big (and often good) feature stories in the @NYTimes and other media outlets. But the routine business of #edtech – who owns what, which execs are switching jobs – illuminates the day-to-day that can help many people understand decisions. It provides context.

As many observers (including @audreywatters) have pointed out, modern #edtech hype frequently ignores history. Electronic edtech goes back one hundred years, to radio and then TV (including Mr. Rogers). Digital edtech goes back nearly 60 years, to the PLATO instructional system.

But that perspective is frequently ignored, and often consciously so, by #edtech startups and promoters who want everyone (notably investors and customers) to believe everything they come up with is brand new and has never been thought of before. And it’s perfect if it’s digital.

Better coverage of the industry itself could help counter hype. And for a while, at the peak of the K-12 #edtech venture boom this decade, we had signs of that. @Marketplace had an edtech reporter. @EdSurge began, covering K-12 as an industry. @EdNETbiz tracked comings & goings.

Yet over the past couple of years, it seems coverage has moved more to tips for teachers in some outlets, and to higher ed and corporate #edtech startups in others. I get it. Teachers are a bigger audience than industry. Investors are touting other segments. We all need to eat.

And it’s not that K-12 #edtech industry coverage has disappeared. But so, so much of it now is all about funding and the bright shiny. Uncritically reproduced (not even rewritten) news releases should not be how the general public finds out about industry inner workings.

Personally, I do write about #edtech when I can. It’s a sideline, and there are some topics I can’t tackle well because I have a long history of working inside the industry, and consciously avoiding conflicts of interest (real and perceived) is important and limits what I write.

More is needed. Coverage doesn’t have to be uniformly critical. It also can’t be universally fawning. No one is well-served by either extreme as a regular diet. We’re also not served by less independent editorial coverage of the K-12 #edtech industry. I hope some step up, again.

For those who prefer it when I just tweet #edtech and tech news, I apologize. I rarely kick up a tweet-storm. But this issue about editorial coverage of the K-12 education technology industry has me musing a bit more than usual. Now back to your regular, predictable Frank feed.

I don’t regret any of what I wrote rapidly that morning. Except maybe misspelling “motivators” in the very first tweet, a typo I introduced as I tried to make “motivations” fit into Twitter’s 280-character limit and had to come up with another word.

I’ll also point out that EdSurge is doing some good reporting in the K-12 edtech area. What EdSurge writes can be selective and uneven as the edtech news and resource site has expanded its coverage into higher education and adjacent markets. Yet some of EdSurge’s best work has come from Managing Editor Tony Wan, who provides context and background, and not just the latest press release.

I also didn’t mention Education Week’s EdWeek Market Brief, which arose as the funding boom did (and seems to be tinged with the patina of a subscription market research service, but isn’t quite that). Still, it’s not edtech-specific, and appears to be a bit of a side project to Education Week’s mainstay good work in covering education as a whole.

That leads to one final postscript observation: Perhaps there just isn’t enough, in these days of click-bait and cut-back journalism, of what science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon once simply called, “Ask the next question.” He was describing it in terms of good speculation and debate. It’s also a hallmark of good journalism.